Geeklawyer stripped and ran naked through the streets of his city in celebration when the BBC began broadcasting the news today that Universal was to make music available for free.
The music industry (and to a lesser extent the film industry) has been desperate to port its old offline business methodology to the digital online era. Its conspicuous failure is a source of fun for many, including Geeklawyer. Then the BBC began promulgating, as news, some random PR agency’s puffery about a firm called Spiralfrog that was going to make Universal’s catalogue available for free download. Users would pay for the song by consuming advertising, it seems. Not a bad idea at heart and certainly a break from the industry’s current plan of suing the living fuck out of everyone connected to the Internet ‘just in case they were infringing copyright’.
As he reached the end of the road, still running fast - his genitalia swinging wildly (and dragging on the ground), certain thoughts began to materialise:
“What format would the files be in?”, “who would advertisers be?”, “could he play them on an MP3 player not crippled with Microsoft digital restrictions management software (DRM)?”, “could he swap cool songs with friends?”, “would he have to register and provide lots of personal data to allow targeting?”, “was it really available in the US?”
As he stood in the centre of the windy rain blown road, he realised he was naked, alone and being laughed at by passers-by. He borrowed a coat from a kind passing stranger and slunk home; now his dispirited deflated member merely dangled below his knees.
Damn, damn damn.
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